


Exhale

by lbk_princen



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Catharsis, Childhood Trauma, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Gen, Post-Canon, Recovery, Reflection, Traumaversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbk_princen/pseuds/lbk_princen
Summary: It was a strange thing. He had lived in suffering for so long that he hadn’t noticed he was now happy. It felt a bit like waking up.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Comments: 7
Kudos: 75





	Exhale

**Author's Note:**

> this fic started bc i was thinking abt how i headcanon all three resembool kids as having either adhd/autism and the fact that ed had to write down the day they burned down their house struck me as a very adhd thing to do. (i have adhd myself)

Autumn days in Resembool were brisk and breezy. Cold winds swept over the hills, carrying with it colourful leaves and the scent of smoke as people all over the village began to celebrate bonfire season. Ed drowsed awake late in the morning to the sound of Nina crying. He sat up in bed and rubbed his face as he glanced at the clock on the wall - he wondered why Winry didn’t wake him like she normally did.

After finishing his morning routine, Ed wandered into the kitchen to see his family having breakfast. Winry looked up at him from where she was calming Nina’s fit. Ed ruffled Hughie’s hair as he passed, and then looped his arm around Winry’s waist.

“Good morning,” he said with a kiss on her cheek.

“Good morning to you too,” she answered. A touch of surprise coloured her expression, but she gave him a squeeze and he hummed contentedly.

Breakfast was a calm, warm affair. A simple question from Hughie led Ed into explaining how food gets broken down by the human body to be used as energy, while Winry chimed in with the proper names of organs and systems that Ed only knew the processes of. Hughie listened, wide-eyed and curious, and Ed felt a spark of pride knowing that his son was going to grow up to be  _ so _ smart.

Ed offered to do the dishes and Winry nodded, but her eyes had been lingering on him a lot throughout the morning, and he wondered why. She looked like she was about to ask him something, then Nina grabbed a fistful of the tablecloth and in the fashion of witless toddlers everywhere, nearly pulled all the plates and cutlery off the table and onto her squishy little head. Both her parents jumped to intervene, and then Winry got pulled away to play with Hughie before she could say whatever it was she had wanted to say. If it was important, she would bring it up again later, Ed was sure.

Ed hummed as he washed the dishes, the melody of a song on the radio he hadn’t been able to get out of his head. The day outside was overcast but the level of discomfort in his leg was minimal, so he predicted the clouds would pass before they broke. 

The rest of the day was average - Ed and Winry took hourly shifts with the kids while the other one got work done, Ed on his research manuscript and Winry on her massive volume of automail commissions. Every day she got calls asking about her mile-long waiting list, because the word of mouth in Rush Valley was that Rockbell automail couldn’t be beat. Ed was inclined to agree.

Though the day was average, Ed felt like Winry was acting oddly. She didn’t argue with him or tease him at all, and she kept pausing like there was something on the tip of her tongue. When he asked her what was on her mind, she just asked him how he was doing.

“I’m… fine?” he replied, puzzled.

“Okay,” Winry said, smiling gently. “Good. I’m glad.”

It was a Saturday, Ed knew, though the actual date escaped him. Usually Pinako came over to have dinner with them on Saturdays - Al too, if he was home, but he was currently in some country east of Xing. Ed missed him sometimes, but the years of their codependence were long behind them now, so the ache was small and manageable and often soothed by Al’s semi-frequent letters. 

“What should we have for dinner?” Ed asked as he prepared sandwiches for a late afternoon lunch.

Winry glanced at him from where she sat at the table, bouncing Nina in her lap. The little girl gurgled happily. “I’m not sure. What are you in the mood for?” Winry asked.

“Hmm, I don’t know. But I hope Granny brings that potato dish she brought last week, it was something else.”

Winry stopped bouncing Nina and stared at her husband. “You still want to have dinner with Granny today?” she asked.

Ed blinked innocently. “Yeah? It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

A realization struck Winry, Ed could tell by the way her chest lifted and her eyes widened slightly. Then her pretty lips firmed into a sad line and her eyebrows drew inwards, and Ed wondered what he’d done wrong this time. “You don’t know what day it is, do you,” she said.

Ed set down the knife he’d been using to spread jelly onto homemade bread. He racked his brain; what day was it? It was autumn, obviously; he remembered last week he’d had a phone interview, the 26th of September-

“Oh,” he said. 

Winry gazed at him sympathetically.

“Already?” he asked.

Winry nodded.

Disbelief swirled through Ed’s brain, and he leaned back against the counter, lunch left to the wayside in the wake of this revelation. He started tapping the cutting board with his right fist, needing the stimulus to keep his mind moving so he could process. Right, of course. It was bonfire season. The reason he and his brother had chosen this day, the third of October, to burn down their house. Nobody would come to investigate the smoke if it was bonfire season. 

“I forgot,” Ed realized aloud. 

For so long, he had clung to the memory of that day, of  _ this _ day, for it was the anniversary. For so long he had repeated over and over to himself like a mantra:  _ don’t forget. _ How could he have forgotten? Every year he dreaded this day because it was symbolic of everything awful that had happened to him. He had nightmares still sometimes, even a decade later, about what he’d seen and done. And they were often worse leading up to this day, as the dread and stress built and built and built.

Except, this week he had slept fine. He had woken up like it was any other day, and lived like he wasn’t treading on desecrated ground. He was standing in the house he and Al had rebuilt (literally over the ashes of the old one) like his life and his body hadn’t been ripped apart here when he was young and full of hubris. It had been thirteen years ago  _ to the day _ that he had stood not forty feet from where he stood now, holding the match that would destroy his home, his past, and any remaining semblance of his innocence.

“Ed.” Winry’s voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he looked at her. She was standing now, Nina on her hip. “You okay?”

That was why she had been acting the way she had, Ed realized. He often got moody on this anniversary. Some years he didn’t want to talk about it, and would rather force his way through the day with gritted teeth. Other years he was reflective and quiet, lost in his thoughts and burdened by trauma. One year he’d broken down over the unfairness of it all, angry at the world, blaming himself, blaming Mustang, blaming Hohenheim. Winry had always been patient and accommodating no matter his mood, and it made him grateful for her all over again for what felt like the millionth time.

It was so incredibly surreal to him that this year he’d just… forgot.

Before, his forgetting would have been a failure. He’d felt pathetic for the fact that he had to carry around a reminder in his pocket, but at least it had done its job. Mustang had let him keep the watch, too, even after he retired; it was a reliquary for the reminder of where he came from and how it all began. It sat to this day in his office, gathering dust in a drawer. That he had forgotten even still having the reminder should have made him bitter. Instead he felt oddly… relieved.

“I’m okay,” Ed replied. He pushed himself off the counter and wrapped Winry in an embrace, their daughter included. Winry’s hair smelled like herbal soap and her clothes smelled like machine oil - his beautiful, thoughtful, gearhead wife. There were still days that he marveled at how he could possibly deserve her, but the knowledge that she adored him right back kept the spot above his heart warm and glowing. 

He’d forgotten because the wound was healing. He’d forgotten because the pain and the struggling and confusion and danger was gone, and in its place was family. Warmth. Safety. Love. He’d forgotten because he no longer  _ needed _ to remember the same way he used to. Because he wasn’t that boy anymore, so full of guilt and self-loathing that it warped back around into aggrandized ego, desperately wanting for things to just go back to how they were. Even once he left the military, even when he’d settled down with Winry, there had been moments where he had missed the horrible chaos of his teen years, and wondered what was wrong with him to make him want back the anger and the pain. The answer was simple: all his life he had been a circle, reaching backwards for eternity. Fitting, for an alchemist.

He wasn’t an alchemist anymore, not really, but his life had still been defined by the circle. Though now, with the simple nonaction of  _ forgetting, _ Ed felt like maybe the circle was broken. His experiences - good and bad - would always be a part of him, the moments that shaped him ingrained in his soul, so maybe he didn’t need to hold so tight to the idea of remembering. He had laid those memories to rest a long time ago, but this was the first anniversary he hadn’t felt like a ghost in a graveyard. October third had come without him noticing, and he was still Edward Elric. The day no longer held power over him. It was just a day. So perhaps it wouldn’t be the end of the world to forget every now and then. 

It was a strange thing. He had lived in suffering for so long that he hadn’t noticed he was now happy. It felt a bit like waking up.

Nina babbled something incomprehensible and leaned towards her father, hands outstretched. Ed took her from Winry and situated her on his own hip, pressing a kiss against the girl’s forehead. Then he kissed Winry on the lips, because he wanted to, and he could.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Ed?” Winry asked, concern still written in her eyebrows.

Ed smiled at her. “Let’s have dinner with Granny tonight,” he said. 

Hughie zoomed into the room with his favourite horse figurine held aloft, galloping fancifully through the air. “Granny’s coming?” he chirped, overhearing.

Winry raised her eyebrows at Ed. “You’re sure?”

Ed nodded and kissed Nina on the cheek this time, making her giggle. “Yeah, of course. Granny always eats with us on Saturdays. Today is Saturday.” He knew he couldn’t put how he felt into words, so he didn’t try. Maybe later he would. Maybe when the children were asleep and all the lights but the bedside lamp were off, he would tell her all of these thoughts he’s having, and maybe she would cry (maybe he would too) and then tell him what she thought about all of it. It was nice to tell Winry things - he should have started doing it far sooner.

Finally, Winry smiled. Ed smiled back because the understanding and relief and  _ love _ he saw in her face made him feel like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and he’d done everything right. He knew with stunning clarity that this moment was simultaneously what his whole life had been building up to, and another building block for all the moments to come. 

Today was just a day, and tomorrow would be another. Ed was alive and confident that  _ nothing _ could be worth as much as this life he lived with the people he loved most in the world. 


End file.
